precoder wrote:pktrekgirl wrote:I have to find *something* good about them. Or failing that, at least interesting or marginally redeeming about them....like maybe they learn a lesson by the end of the film...or even get their just deserts. Or even that we come to understand WHY they are the way they are, even if they are disagreeable.
Well there wasn't much good in them to like probably why I found it so unusually funny. They played it up that way and made you want to hate them all. I'd agree that the characters weren't very interesting; they were in fact vain and shallow and as for getting their just reward for their sinfulness, I somehow felt happily content at the finale knowing the two had eliminated each other from circulation, ya know, for the betterment of the rest of society.
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Okay! I can buy that, Benji! I must admit that I'd never thought of it that way, but I can buy into that idea, and it gives me a bit of what I'm looking for!
You bring up an interesting point by mentioning that they aren't taught a lesson for their infidelity at the end, something the Hays office had singled out as a stipulation of protest. Bootleggers, gangsters and their molls virtually getting away with murder (and worse) in precode movies was specifically sited as an article they felt Hollywood guilty of propagating to viewers. At one point Shearer says to Monty: "You do realize of course, that we are living in sin"; something that surely wouldn't fly a few years later ...
Well, I was afraid that you and other posters would interpret my comment this way and actually dinked about with the wording some...but I guess not enough.
What I mean to say was that I need for a character to have at least one redeeming characteristic about him/her that makes me sympathetic to them, *OR*, failing that, they need to either get their just deserts *OR* at least end up learning something about themselves that would cause them to make a change.
Otherwise, the plot you are left with is simply a voyeuristic peek into some jerkwad's life...and I don't need to watch a film to get that - I can do that sitting in Atlanta traffic for an hour.
For example, many of Bogart's and Cagney's characters are not nice guys. But generally speaking, I can find SOME redeeming quality about them that will make me sympathetic to them, even though they might be bad guys. In many of these cases, I am NOT rooting for the individual to 'get their just deserts'....but that is because I've found something to like about them.
OR they learn something and become a better man by the end of the picture. Still maybe not a 'good' man...but at least a better one. Then, the story is about someone's JOURNEY in life. Not just a peek into a ghastly and static situation.
I hope that I've made better sense now! Forgive if I've overexplained...but I wanted to clarify that I am not wishing away the precode mentality. I just want the story to be about something other than what's on the screen. Maybe that is why I love Chaplin so much.
I'm guessing this is one we simply see differently this time. But thanks for the discussion. It certainly suited my tastes as an enjoyable and sophisticated adult comedy which is exactly what it was for me. I'm glad that somewhere along the line I didn't recommend this one to you and then have you hate it like that. Ouch! I've steered others towards this one. But I appreciate your candid views and your sticking to those guns ... Keep 'em loaded ...
Well first, it wouldn't have mattered to my opinion of you if you *had* recommended this film. Because once again - it is not the film itself. The acting is good. This is just a matter of personal taste. And I am not one to assume that my taste is any better than anyone else's.
I love your unbiased sincerity ...
Well, that is what I come to discussion boards FOR. As long as people are polite, and don't assume their position is THE only 'right' position, I think disagreement is good for a discussion board.
I mean, what fun would it be if one person said "I love this film!" and 25 people agreed? That doesn't make for a very lively discussion. At least IMO.
It's a difficult balancing act for some posters on boards...but IMO, as long as neither side states their OPINION as FACT, discussion is good. Where people run into problems is when they DO state their subjective opinions as fact - that is likely to piss other posters off, because the implication is that anyone who doesn't agree with them is an idiot.
Which is, of course, not the case.
Here's a boisterous and even raucous early comedy based on Noel Cowards successful stageplay. A play which he scripted in one week while sick with the flu in 1930. "Private Lives" (MGM 1931) is a movie I bet Woody Allen likes ...
Norma Shearer is Amanda, compulsively mendacious and unreliable, and Robert Montgomery is Elyot, brash and narcissistic. They are divorcees who happen to honeymoon at the same hotel and in adjoining suites. Both newly married to others, they each conduct themselves as if their new spouses were mere compensational substitutes for their previous mates. Amanda, now with Victor (Reginald Denny), an intolerable annoyance, who doesn't know peach from pink, and Elyot, now with Sybil (Una Merkel), a dysfunctionally insecure whinebag in perpetual need of reassuring kisses, find themselves pretending to be blissfull, but are inwardly unhappy ...
Left alone momentarily, the couple is unexpectedly reunited and, overcome with emotion by their song, "Someday I'll Find You" (written by Coward himself), their past love resurfaces. They plot a getaway ... "Oh, "this is utterly, utterly ridiculous" and "What are we to do?" ... They quickly decide. Amanda tells Victor "I see I clearly married an fat old gentleman in a club chair" and "You're a pompous ass. Yes, a pompous ass"... That should work ... and likewise Elyot tells Sybil "I shall cut off your head with a meat axe" Sybil can only respond with "You're cruel and beastly. Mother said you had shifty eyes". Elyot recoils, "Don't quibble Sybil" ...
Then Came The Dawn ...
Together, they escape but begin to incessantly bicker with each other, rather raucously, which destroyed their marriage in the first place. So they invent a 'catch-word', "Solomon Isaacs" which when announced by either, will instantly cease all quarreling for two minutes. It barely works ...
Then Came The Dawn ...
Now secure and alone, they share their precious togetherness ... Oh what joy! He massages her feet and she curls her slinky fingers into him and whispers, "I must see those dear flamingos" ... Soon, however, squabbling ensues: "There are certain moments when our cosmic thingamy's don't fuse properly". "Sollochs" announces Elyot and once again an air of dignified comfort returns. Dancing, and in love again, the self-torturing couple converse in dribble: "Is that the Grand Dutchess Olga lying under the piano?" ... "Yes, her husband died a week ago on his way back from Polbrough". "Didn't you notice her at dinner blowing all those shrimp through her ear trumpet?" ... Needless, to say, by this time I'm laughing uncontrollably at the utter utter insanity ...
Without warning (but you know it's coming), a knock-down drag-out row erupts which includes smashing gramaphone records, digging lint from chair cushions and tearing through magazines...up-side down ... Watch Norma twisting, then untwisting, then retwisting a phone chord around her finger while hysterically blubbering, and then take a running leap into a sofa, burying her face in pillows and kicking her feet in relentless tantrum. Elyot calls Amanda "an ill-mannered and bad tempered slattern" ...
Then Came The Dawn ...
Victor and Sybil soon catch up and confront their spouses' sinful infidelity. A pretentiously dignified breakfast is served and the meaningless conversational dribbling soon explodes into violent verbal insults ... but this time it's Victor and Sybil, now thoroughly annoyed with each other, while Amanda and Elyot look on in total disbelief. Victor calls Sybil "a silly scatterbrained little fool", to which Sybil retaliates with "How dare you, you insufferably vain brute" ...
Amanda and Elyot quietly wisk away on a train car and laughing uncontrollably. "I thought only we behaved that badly" ...
Norma Shearer, married to MGM studio exec and producer Irving Thalberg, was perfectly positioned to get this role initially written for Gertrude Lawrence but I believe Norma is at her very best here. Radiant and confident, she proves herself comedically with an outstanding performance. Her very expressive physical gesturing and overly dramatic acting is perfect for Amanda. Robert Montgomery (sometimes under-achieving), excels this time under Sidney Franklin's direction ...
Slick and glossy, the production is top-notch and almost seems ahead of its time. And is perhaps the first talkie screwballer that really works: a precurser to films Lombard and Hepburn popularized in the later 1930s. Sophisticated, mature, quick and very funny ... I'm confident you'll laugh at this rip-roaring and insanely hilarious precoder ...
Actually, I think that is a very good review. And I actually agree with about 90% of it. All the way down to the part about it being funny. I didn't think it was funny....but that's just me. No reflection on you, Norma, Robert Montgomery, or anything like that.
Benji, I just think that I honestly have an odd sense of humor. Really.
Remember how I don't care for the Marx Brothers? That is another example of where my humor doesn't line up with the majority. I worship at Chaplin's feet, and I love Buster Keaton.... I like Harold Lloyd, except when he's up high. In the talkies, I love William Powell/Myrna Loy...or Carole Lombard...or Clark Gable's more comedic roles. I love Doris Day and Rock Hudson films. I love Errol Flynn's tongue in cheek THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN. And Cary Grant is fabulous (except for I don't like BRINGING UP BABY - Katharine Hepburn's character grates on my nerves).
But the practically universally adored Marx Brothers? Don't care for them. I have watched DUCK SOUP a few times now, and I simply do not find it funny. Instead, I find the puns rather annoying.
But I am in the MINORITY there. So how could I even entertain the possibility that my taste is 'correct' and everyone else's is wrong?
I can't.
And so I don't.
I am just resigned to being different.
I think for me, comedy needs to have a subtext. Something going on below the physical actions occurring on the screen.
Chaplin is an expert at this - so I love him.
William Powell is also an expert at this - which is why I love his comedies. It's not what William Powell SAYS in a film that makes it funny. It's what he DOESN'T say, but that you know his character is thinking. MY MAN GODFREY - a perfect example. When the whole family is assembled and chaos ensues - Carole Lombard's character is hysterical, the mother is being an idiot saying all sorts of ridiculous things, and Carlo is jumping around the room as an ape.
It's only marginally funny - UNTIL Godfrey enters the room. He says NOTHING. He does nothing. But you know what he is thinking, and THAT is what is funny to me: An outsider stepping into this normal (for this family) situation and looking around objectively thinking 'These people are absolutely NUTS!'
Same situation in WOMAN OF THE YEAR. My favorite scene in possibly any Kate/Spencer film is when she is making him breakfast and it is a disaster. But Kate isn't what is funny to me - SPENCER TRACY is who is funny to me, looking on in disbelief, not saying a single word.
The Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, etc - all very much focused on exactly what is on the screen and nothing more - no subtext.
And not very funny to me.
But Chaplin....William Powell....Or Errol Flynn making fun of his real-life self in DON JUAN? Hilarious.